


My Very Good Gideon the Ninth Fanfic

by grendelgrendelgrendel



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alcohol, Ballroom AU, F/F, Gen, au where nothing horrific happens, party and fun au, skeleton DJs, there's a ballroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26194105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grendelgrendelgrendel/pseuds/grendelgrendelgrendel
Summary: It turns out that Canaan House had a ballroom this whole time, complete with the freshest skeleton DJs this side of the solar system!This is my dumb, spur-of-the-moment fanfic where instead of a lot of people dying horribly and/or being traumatised, they just have a party!Harrow and Gideon try beer for the first time. It's great/awful, and you should read it.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Coronabeth Tridentarius
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	My Very Good Gideon the Ninth Fanfic

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.

It turns out that Canaan House had a ballroom this whole time, complete with the freshest skeleton DJs this side of the solar system! Most of the cavaliers and necromancers had gathered there on their last night of Necro Academy (the very safe and nonlethal training school for the Emperor’s necromancers and cavaliers, teams of which, although spiritually and physically left unentangled, were called Lyctors in honour of the horrible, terrible, now-abandoned practice of one eating the other to absorb their life energy). So the new Lyctors had gathered to celebrate all of them (yes, even Coronabeth, who wasn’t actually a necromancer!) successfully passing their trials and moving on up the employment ladder to the Emperor’s personal cadre. Of course, the second and eighth house weren’t there, because they couldn’t abide fun; and although Coronabeth was allowed in, neither Ianthe nor Naberius were, because everyone found them too creepy and douchey to bear, so they were consigned to simply watching the party from outside the ballroom, through its glass double doors. Naberius stuck around for about two seconds before scoffing, saying, “This is beneath me,” and stomping away to go polish his sword in his room, alone.

  
Ianthe hung about.

  
“I do apologise for my sister,” said Coronabeth, taking a graceful sip from her wineglass and turning incrementally away from the doors so she didn’t have to make eye contact with Ianthe. Gideon was too busy staring at her golden curls to formulate a decent reply, so she mumbled something like,

“Yeah, she’s creepy.”

  
“I still can’t believe you talk,” said Coronabeth. “You have such a lovely voice.”

  
Cytherea nodded in agreement. “And such strong biceps,” she added.

  
Once Cytherea had found out they were no longer in the business of creating Lyctors in Canaan House, she’d come clean to everyone about who she really was and why she was there. Turns out that pretty much everyone was cool with it, except for Palamedes, who had been utterly wrecked by the news and was now sitting in the corner with Camilla, nursing his shock as necrotunes blasted out over the speakers. Harrow sat with them, mostly because it was the only place in the room to get away from everybody’s terrible dancing and small talk, and it gave her an opportunity to study the skeleton DJs and make notes. Perhaps she could find a way to mimic their movement without –

  
“It’s just that, well, she’s really gone now. All those years spent writing letters, waiting, hoping to see her, and now….” Palamedes loudly slurred these words as Camilla poured some water into his cup of Strongbow Dark Fruits. Harrow wasn’t unsympathetic to his plight, but she couldn’t bear to listen, as it was distracting her from the issue of the skeleton DJs, so she got up and walked to the other side of the room. She passed by Gideon, now surrounded by Coronabeth, Cytherea, the Fifth house duo, and – ew – the Fourth teenagers, all no doubt asking her for workout advice. Gideon’s biceps practically glowed at the attention. Harrow pushed past and headed towards the door, where she was met with an eerie smile.

  
Ianthe waved her fingers at her through the glass. Harrow weighed her options for a second before turning abruptly back to the party. Ianthe, behind the glass, deflated somewhat, and, deciding that she’d had enough, went back to the Third House chambers to torture Naberius, which would at least cheer her up a little.

  
As Harrow turned back, she was horrified to find that the people surrounding Gideon were now chanting her name as she shotgunned a beer, then picked up another one, cracked it open on her forehead, and chugged that down too. Disgusting. Absolutely vulgar.

  
Distantly, she wondered what beer tasted like.

  
When Gideon saw Harrow hovering around the edges of the party like a sad dog, she waved her over.

  
“Harrow, stop being a loser and come over here! You’ve got to try this.” Gideon handed her a can. Harrow reluctantly took it into her hands, recoiling a bit as the open can stuck to her gloves. This was the one Gideon had smashed onto her forehead, and it was almost empty.

  
“It’s sticky,” she complained.

  
“Try iiiiiiit,” said Gideon. Harrow was displeased to find that all of the attention that was on Gideon had shifted over to her now. She turned her back to the group so they couldn’t see, lest she embarrass herself by getting the drink on her face paint, and she took a careful sip from the hole in the side of the can. It tasted the way stale urine smelled, but it was warm going down, like being hugged from the inside.

  
“This is absolutely revolting,” Harrow said. “Give me another one.”

\--

Half an hour later, everyone discovered, with varying levels of amusement and horror, that Harrowhark was capable of party tricks. Mostly they involved cutting a tiny incision in a can, big enough to pass bone fragments through but not big enough to be immediately visible, and then using the fragments to explode the can and send shards of bone jutting out of it. Magnus and Abigail exchanged worried looks as Harrow repeated this for the fourth time. She was giggling uncontrollably, which for Harrow meant that she let out a single choked laugh every time a can exploded.

  
“It’s hilarious,” she explained to Gideon, “because nobody expects there to be bones in beer.”

  
Gideon was just glad that Harrow seemed to be enjoying herself. For her part, Gideon was pretty sure either Coronabeth or Dulcinea/Cytherea, maybe both, were giving her subtle signals that they were down to go to the bone zone, if you caught her drift. That they wanted a better look at her sword, so to speak. That they –

  
“ _Gi_ deon,” said Coronabeth, tucking a stray lock of red hair away from Gideon’s face. “You are such an enigma. What’s on your mind?”

  
“Uh… bones and swords,” said Gideon, with great confidence.

  
“Oh, I’m no good with bones and swords.” Coronabeth fiddled with her glass for a bit before she appeared to settle on an idea. “…Maybe you could teach me?”

  
Gideon wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

  
“Wait… seriously?”

  
Coronabeth looked almost affronted. Disappointed, even.

  
“Gideon, this is a _party_. Of _course_ I’m serious.”

  
Gideon was beside herself. After making arrangements for someone to keep an eye on Harrow, she took Coronabeth to the training arena, where they practiced their swordsmanship and Coronabeth almost wept with frustration.

  
Harrow stopped doing party tricks after she learned that people had begun to discuss the logistics of keeping her out by the glass doors like Ianthe. She instead retired to the corner where Camilla and Palamedes were still talking, albeit now much less hysterically. Palamedes had sobered up a little, and was too tired to cry any more. She almost enjoyed sitting there with them, provided they didn’t look directly at her or ask her any questions, which is how she knew she was blisteringly drunk. They sat together like this until the party was over, which didn’t take very long because Magnus and Abigail had made the teenagers go to bed early and Coronabeth and Gideon had disappeared, leaving only the five of them and the skeleton DJs, who were capable of reading a room and had turned down the volume on the necrotunes in favour of something mellower.

  
This was the best, if only, party the Ninth House had _ever had_. Looks like being a Lyctor was not so bad after all!


End file.
